The Art of Racing in the Rain
by thebarricadeboys
Summary: She doesn't like him, he barely knows her, but they're the only two that survived the war and hell, they've got The Boy Who Lived to raise. / Sirius/OC, slight AU.


Like many stories before, this particular one begins on one very ordinary Halloween night in a very ordinary neighborhood filled with very ordinary people.

There was absolutely nothing even the slightest bit odd about River Trace Place. In fact, it was very average. There was an average amount of houses lining the street. There were an average amount of inhabitants living in the houses. These people led very average lives with very average jobs and an average income.

Nothing ever happened at River Trace Place. Especially not in the dead of night.

Which is why Benjamin Greene awoke with a start as something that sounded much like a gunshot or a car backfiring sidled its way into his consciousness and startled him awake. He lay in bed, counted to three, and felt as his wife stirred beside him.

"What was that?" she murmured sleepily, her hand moving across the bed sheets to clutch onto his arm. She sat up and turned on the bedside lamp. The room was immediately doused in light and suddenly, he desperately wished that his son and his family hadn't gone back home after visiting. His son was big and strong and could take down any hooligans that tried to harass anyone.

"I don't know," he whispered back. For a moment, the world was silent, and his wife's grip grew tighter.

"We've locked the doors, right?" she hissed in his ear, sitting up as well. "Did you check if the burglar alarm was working like I asked you?"

He hadn't. He hadn't thought he needed to. In all his years of living in his house, he'd never, ever heard of a robbery or attack of any sort.

"Anna," he said soothingly, moving his hand over to hers and patting it gently. "It's okay. Nothing's going to happen to us tonight."

Anna's light blue eyes surveyed him, the crinkles at the corners of her eyes deepening as she glared. Her lips set into a firm line.

"Benjamin, I swear –"

Their hushed argument was cut off by screaming. Two voices screaming, actually. One sounded like a wail – a baby, if Ben wasn't mistaken. The other was obviously a woman. In the dead of night, her furious tone carried out into the air and nearly shattered the windows.

"Dear _Lord," _Anna murmured as the shrieking became shriller and less coherent. "Should we call the police?"

Ben shook his head, hands shaking slightly as a string of profanities spewed from the feminine-sounding voice. He'd never heard anyone curse like that before. Especially not a woman.

Despite his wife's whispers to get back to bed, the slightly-trembling man slipped out of bed, peeking through the slip of the curtains. From his peeping spot, he watched as a taller figure – a male, he presumed – turned towards the smaller female and say something. Whatever he said seemed to calm her down slightly, since she stopped positively screeching, though she clutched a bundle closer to her chest. With a start, Ben realized that it was a _baby. _It made sense – the baby was the one wailing as if it were dying. That wasn't particularly out of the ordinary.

Of the trio, however, the baby seemed to be the only _normal _one.

The man seemed to have noticed this and held his hands out. The woman hesitated and even took a tiny step back. Even Ben, from his spot at the window, saw this. There was no way that the male down there didn't notice. He watched with bated breath as the woman seemed to sigh and then place the baby in his arms. Almost immediately, the crying quieted, and then ceased completely.

And Ben simply stared as they looked along the street and then made their way to the house right across from theirs.

"We have new neighbors?" Ben hadn't even realized that his wife was hovering behind him, watching the scene as well. He didn't answer his wife, instead watching as the newcomers stood in front of the door. It opened as if on its own accord, but surely Ben's eyes were playing tricks on him, right?

At that exact moment, the man turned around and seemed to lock eyes with Ben. Ben gasped and stepped backwards, ignoring his wife's questioning look as he scrambled away from the window and bad to bed like a frightened child.

Anna followed, running a hand through her graying plait before scooting under the covers. Her cold feet hit his calf. The neighborhood was quiet once again, the broken silence from moments before only echoing in the witness's ears, otherwise forgotten.

"Do you think they're dangerous?" he heard Anna whisper as he closed his eyes and pretended to get back to sleep. Because that was the concern at the moment. This was the biggest disruption in the neighborhood in what seemed like forever.

"I think we'll find out soon enough."

This answer wasn't the one that Anna had wanted to hear. Ben could tell by the way her breath caught in her throat. She didn't say anything as she shifted to turn out the light and then settled back into the bed.


End file.
